


A Story About Us

by kinkyhux



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Based on Similar Episodes, Existentialism, Fluff, M/M, Radio Style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6355216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkyhux/pseuds/kinkyhux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today's Proverb:</p>
<p>We do not live. We wait. We wait for the future to take us and guide us, despite knowing that it will bring us somewhere we have no business being. We survive on the hope that we will be greater than anything, and the futile faith we have in ourselves and others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Story About Us

**Author's Note:**

> I had this posted on my previous AO3 account, but I deleted that account with the intention of leaving forever. However, Darling convinced me to stay, so I made a new account. This is the only thing I've ever published that I would be willing to republish, so I'm doing that just to get it out there.
> 
> I actually haven't listened to any WTNV podcasts since they hit the 50-60 mark because I got busy and kind of forgot about it, so I have no idea what's going on anymore. But here. Imagine this takes place around the time "A Story About Them" was released.

**** “This is a story about us,” says the man on the radio, and though he is not pleased to be telling it, he knows you are, and so he does.

Welcome to Night Vale.

This is a story about us.

You and me, together as a whole, even when separated by time and microphones and tragedy and science. Or mysterious wooden doors that could eventually envelop the universe in a relentless, blinding light. Especially when separated by an absolute nothing, not even the woven threads and jaunty spikes of our clothing.

Us.

Two letters could not hold a deeper, more significant meaning.

Right now, we are in different places.

I sit in the claustrophobic studio of Night Vale's #1 radio broadcasting facility. There is a steaming, dark purple cup of coffee on my desk. The lights are out save for the faint red glow of the exit sign that David is still staring at, wishing to pass beneath it and into the world. David wishes he was passing beneath a lot of places, going to a lot of other places beyond those points at which he had passed beneath. (Perhaps he wishes he were where you are, listener, or passing beneath where you are.) The lights are out because the packaging on the coffee says that, when hot, the coffee will glow in the dark. My coffee does not glow. Its gelatinous form did not even glisten in the stinging fluorescent lights above me when they were on.

I sit, in a swivel chair that does not swivel anymore, and perhaps never did swivel, disappointed and upset, telling a story about us in the dark and quiet of the claustrophobic studio of Night Vale's #1 broadcasting facility.

You may be sitting, or you may not be. We are in different places. I do not know where you are, or what you are doing, or why you are doing it— but I do know that you look beautiful as you do it. You look beautiful doing everything. You may be performing some extremely important science experiment for the betterment and safety of the Night Vale community, or you may be drinking regular coffee and watching old films that make no sense in plot nor in visual representation. You may be doing a lot of things, passing beneath or above or through to a lot of places. There are no limits. (There are _ literally _ no limits. Humans have no boundaries. You explained to me yesterday, when we were together, why this bothered you so much, and I do not remember why. Neither do you.)

You may be anywhere, doing anything, with anyone.

You are listening to this radio broadcast while you do it. Always. It makes me feel wonderful knowing that, even if you are not with me, I am with you— because that is how it will always be.

This is about us, together. We care about nothing else. There is nothing else to care about.

There once was a time when the harmful, golden light of the sun didn't make children cower to the calf of their owner; their small, new eyes seeing too much of the agonizing verity of existence. There once was a place where water rippled when stones were skidded across it, those stones having been thrown by someone with a sense of childish glee only a person of an open mind and body and soul could experience—their organs spilling into the green, cloudy lake in a spreading blob of deep red and pulsing, beating, living muscle and torn flesh. This place, and this time, is not now, and it is not Night Vale, but it existed, and it was somewhere. Somewhere near, or far.

That place: a planet, of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans.

Often times, as night nears, our bodies collide and our nerves send signals to our other nerves, an endless cycle. It is endless. Our nerves do not connect to our brains. We do not feel pain. We do not feel anything. We do not feel anything but emotion.

And then, our emotions aren't even ours to begin with.

The man on the radio plays in the background of your life, whatever it may consist of. Though he is not just another dull, indistinct man in a crowd of expressionless faces, and he appreciates knowing that.

Soon you and I will not be separated by the duties of living, or the fear of confrontation, or the dismal-looking authorities of Strex Corps Synernists Inc. that watch us from above, ready to eliminate. Only by our clothes and the distance between rooms and doors and the scratchy blankets slung around our shoulders.

Or, maybe, we will be as close as two men can be. As close as the line between reality and everything else allows us to be. Perhaps we will become one, our skin growing around one another, flesh embracing flesh and sinew clutching sinew, every atom of our small, individual beings creating one monstrous, ultimate being.

Then we remain only linked at the mind, or when our hands grasp each other when we go for walks, or when our lips lock onto each other's and we hold onto one another with the desperation of the starving.

My apologies, listeners, but the new Strex Corps laws mandate that I have at least two sponsors in every broadcast, so please pardon this interruption from one of our faithful sponsors.

_ Sweat is a product of production. We produce. We create and destroy and create and destroy. _

_ Sweat is a sign of good citizenship, a sign of being productive, a sign of growth and maturity and change. _

_ Sweat is productivity in a gross, fragrant, sticky, uncomfortable, liquid form. _

_ Productivity is a sign that you are real. Productivity gives you a purpose in this horrifying, cryptical universe. Productivity gives you a reason to continue your trivial life. _

_ Strex Corps Synernists Inc. Do not stop sweating. Produce. Produce. PRODUCE! _

And now back to our story, but the part where I know what you are doing, and I can hear what you are thinking.

You pull the curtain across the bar, the hot water of the shower searing your skin, and you are too tired to fix the temperature, so you let your skin burn.

After wetting your lovely hair, you lean against the cold wall of the shower, a pleasant contrast of sensations, closing your eyes and thinking about every mistake you have ever made in your life. You think about me. You think about my soothing voice talking in the radio, telling you what you are thinking as you think it. You are not used to this.

You'd always wanted a story about us, and you think about how nice it is, even if we are in two different places, doing different things.

I speak into my microphone, and I think about you. I think about how good you feel, about how I am the cause of you feeling good, and I feel good. Us. I can't get “Us.” out of my head.

I don't want to.

**Here is a pre-recorded advertisement!**

_ Think _ very _ hard about your life. _

_ Are you thinking? _

_ Think harder. _

_ Force the muscles of your mind to contract and expand inside of your skull, pulsing with the electricity of thought. Release your body from its natural functions to channel all energy to your mind. Your mind is a key, and there is no lock which it fits. _

_ At least, not that you will ever know of. _

_ Because locks are dangerous, especially open ones. They may lead you to all kinds of horrifying information. Information that you do not want to know. Information that you do not need to know. _

_ Think about the key of your mind. Study it. Accept its dents and scratches as your _ only _ attempts to finding its pair. Accept and dissolve. Destroy every atom of its dark brass and jagged teeth. Is it gone? _

_ You will be safe. _

_ McDonalds: You don't _ have _ to know anything. _

To you, the world is full of fascinating information to be discovered. Everything is a question waiting to be answered. Everything is an experiment, even our very beings broken down to the individual, raw, exposed _ self _ .

The universe is too big for us. We have our hands wrapped around something impossible and incredible and incomprehensible, and you grip tighter, search peacefully and caring for a way to understand, to believe and calculate and exist. You, my brave, beautiful scientist— you care, and you try, and you celebrate even the most trivial of miracles.

Because they are not trivial to you. They are extraordinary. The universe is extraordinary and sometimes, as you take samples and look at your complex machinery for answers and, you know, do important science stuff, you wonder if anything was truly made to be understood. You wonder if we have evolved into creatures that were never meant to be.

And after coming to this town, you wonder more and more, about many things.

And you talk to me, mostly about science, but also about other things—and I listen, I hear words and process them and respond accordingly, and you wonder if you should try to understand _ me _ because _ s _ omehow you feel, somehow you _ know _ , that I am just as complex and inexplicable and strange and galvanic as the universe.

When we are together, I wonder about you, too. I think about you and your life and your choices, good and bad. I think about how wonderful you are, how much you mean to me, and that is enough understanding for me.

All I need to know, all I need to be able to comprehend, is that you may exist, that you may love me, that _ I _ see you and _ I _ hold you and _ I _ am the one who loves you.

As you stare at the radio, hair dripping onto the carpet, you do not hear me say anything about the weather. You do not hear anything for a few calculating, precious moments.

[The Weather](http://jeffpianki.bandcamp.com/track/old-habits)

You step outside into the low light of a setting sun, and you wish I was next to you for a fraction of a second. For a fraction of a second you are unsatisfied with your existence.

It is the same fraction.

Your gorgeous wet hair dampens your shirt, and the dry, hot desert air warms it, makes it uncomfortable. You stand up straight, out of habit, even though your shoulders feel heavy. One of your scientist friends from your original hometown calls your cell phone, but you do not know it is them. It is a number you do not recognize, so you disregard it and slide your phone back into the pocket of your dark blue jeans.

You wonder who they were. You wonder why you didn't answer it. You chalk it down as habit, but suspect it wasn't your decision to ignore it.

It has happened many times before.

You turn on the portable radio and place the headphones on your head, tune in to Night Vale Community Radio.

You take a walk and think. While there are many things to do in Night Vale, almost none of them on a Friday evening are outdoor activities. You walk, and you reach the edge of town, past Old Woman Josie's house and past the Car Lot. Behind you, the tired city looks small compared to the setting sun, to the void.

Uneven footsteps, uneven paths.

No paths.

You stop somewhere in between the Sand Wastes and the Scrub Lands. You stop because you do not feel alone, and it is not a good kind of company.

You are still, and there is no wind or noise. You pull out your phone and prepare to call me. I prepare to listen.

You spin around when you think you hear movement, headphones now around your neck. Pebbles crunch in the sand in response to your movement. The radio crackles and pops from your neck. Your cell phone illuminates only a few stray plants, and reflects in the wide dumb eyes of some nocturnal animal.

There is no threat in the few feet behind you. This is somehow more reassuring than it should be, and you accept it, laugh when you think about me.

My hands are shaking as I fear for you, for your life, for your sanity. Night Vale is beautiful and astounding and lovely, but it is breakneck and heinous and malicious, and it cannot be trusted.

Nothing can be trusted. It is an unquestionable fact about the universe. It is the only fact about the universe.

And I think about us, just as you do, and we are connected this way.

But somewhere above you, somewhere that may not be now, and is not here, it pulls you away from me for a moment, and you look above you at this planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans.

And you stare at it, marvel at how it sticks out from the void, how it looks as if it is shifting between existence and non-existence, and you look above you, and you see, but you do not reach for it. You merely observe—you are a scientist, after all.

When you come home to me, you will tell me all of your theories and we will be connected again. We will touch and become one, and I will tell you every sweet thought I have about you, and you will blush, and I with think, “I could not be happier here with you,” but I will not say this to you, because I will be saying it with everything else I say, and everything we do, I am also saying it to you now, as you listen to me on the radio.

I could not be happier with you. As us. Us, together.

This has been our story.

The radio moves onto other things — news, traffic, political opinions, and _ corrections _ to political opinions. But we are still waiting for us, still counting the minutes to when we get to be together, when this story is finally what it was supposed to be, even after it is over—

**A story about us.**

And you were pleased—and I grew to be, too—because you always wanted to hear about us on the radio.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, and please comment! I'd love to know what you think.


End file.
